“Yes. Thank you.”
“I tried to bring our priestess to assist you, but she refused, saying she might be injured. I cannot force her, and my own blood was not enough to prevent your contagion, nor were the services of my Mercy Blade. Neither of us can cure you now that the taint has taken firm root.”
Rick looked away, discomfort squirming though him. He remembered—in bits and snatches—the first days after Jane brought him, more dead than alive, to the MOC’s Clan Home. Gee DiMercy and Leo had carried Rick to a bed and climbed in with him, healing him as best they could. It had been way more intimate than he was comfortable with, but they had kept him alive, so he couldn’t bitch about their methods.
When it was obvious that Rick wasn’t going to respond, Leo said, “The local witches wish to assist you. If you will permit.” Rick looked back at him quickly. “The female who spelled you originally is no longer with the coven. You will be safe.”
“Can you keep me drugged through it?”
“Of course.” Leo moved closer, inhaling. “I smell your pain. It grows. I shall send in the witches.” He turned to the man beside him. “Keep him comfortable.” Moving human slow, he walked from the room.
“Yes, boss,” George Dumas said, the words sounding odd when flavored with his faint British accent.
Rick dropped his arms and nodded to the blood-servant. The man was holding an oversized handgun, a tranquilizer gun. Rick had never liked the MOC’s primo blood-servant and especially didn’t like knowing that the overage half-human blood-sipper had shot him in the butt, but there were better times than now to complain about it. That gun was loaded with his sanity for the next three days. “Dumas.”
“You’ll be in charge of the dosing. Ask and I’ll shoot. I understand the pain will likely be more intense whenever the moon is up and easier to bear when the moon is below the horizon. Of course, if they get you to shift, you’ll be fine.”
Rick’s mouth twisted up. “Furry.”
“That too.” There was compassion in the blood-servant’s eyes.
Hell. George Dumas was probably more human than Rick was now. He sighed. “Okay.”
Moments later, five witches entered the room. A tiny blonde approached the bars, getting closer than anyone had since he’d woken up in the cell.
“We’ve met. You might remember me? Butterfly Lily?” She pointed at an older woman. “And my mom, Feather Storm?”
“I remember.” He also remembered that they had claimed to be “not real powerful. Mostly we’re used as routing for group workings.” He’d rather have the most powerful witch in the city here, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Thank you for coming.”
She introduced the others as Rowan Rose, Running Doe Poppy, and Orchid Sunrise. Rick nodded, not smiling at the silly monikers. If they could help, they could call themselves Catwoman, Batwoman, and Hercules-etta for all he cared. Rowan Rose looked around the room, checked her watch, and shook her head. “We have eighteen minutes to get the circle drawn and the ritual started. This is not going to be fun, girls.” It wasn’t. And that was an understatement.
By one a.m., Jane had left the room. By two a.m., Rick was on the floor of his cell, writhing in his own vomit, gagging like the worst case of dry heaves any drunk had ever had, shrieking, panting, screaming like a banshee, and begging for the next dose of medication. He got it. And he didn’t wake until the moon fell below the horizon near dawn.
The sound of mocking laughter woke him. His eyes fluttered open, and he blinked, trying to focus on the floor of his cell, his left cheek on the cool, wet stone. His eyes were working but independently; his brain wasn’t able to make the dual images into one. Water ran along the floor and trickled into a drain, running off him in fresh rivulets. He remembered where he was. And what he wasn’t. And his stomach did somersaults until he gagged. His abdominal muscles cramped hard with the retching, and he wondered how bad his sickness had been to make him hurt this badly afterward despite the healing properties of were-taint in his system. He had a bad feeling that this hell-on-waking sensation was going to become overly familiar for the rest of his life.
He had been hosed off again and was wet to the skin in the clothes Jane had brought him, but at least he wasn’t lying in his own filth anymore. His stomach churned, but he shoved an arm under himself and rested on his elbow as the world whirled around him.